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When our relationship with money shifts from scarcity to abundance, from hoarding to generosity, everything financial in our life shifts in unexpected life-giving ways.  It’s pretty simple: give money. Open your wallet and give cash to the person who needs it. Enter your credit or debit card number online in support of your friend’s charity walk/run/bike ride. Pull out your check book and return the envelope from the international NGO fighting poverty you received in the mail. Financially support your local library, the Girl Scout troop, global anti-hunger initiatives, the Red Cross, your faith community, environmental groups, you name it. Give.
When it comes to following Jesus, there is very little that is simple. Some might argue that the two things Jesus commanded his followers to do—love God and love neighbor—are in essence simple. Yet being in relationship with others, God included, is never simple. People are complicated. Being in relationship with money, however, can be very simple. Money has no feelings. It’s just paper—and in most cases now it’s not even paper. It’s just an abstract number on a screen. Click the button, swipe the card, open the wallet. I promise, money won’t resist. The vast majority of Americans, including myself, have more than enough money to meet their basic needs. Globally, we are the richest in the world. Yet, here’s the rub: the richer you are, the less likely you are to share your resources, especially financial resources. Sociologists have proven it over and over again through careful statistical research: the rich give a significantly smaller percentage of their income away than the poor. Let that proven sociological trend shame you. Recently, the women’s international soccer team from Trinidad and Tobago arrived in the US for a World Cup qualifying match. They didn’t have enough money for breakfast. American coach Randy Waldrum posted a plea on Twitter and by day’s end the team raised over $9k. Who was one of the biggest donors? The rival Haitian National team who donated all of the $1,316 it had collected through fundraising. Yes, the team from the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The poor have sympathy for the poor. This sociological trend is simple to reverse in your own life. Begin by recognizing that your bank account is not yours any more than the tree in your front yard. Instead, accept that every dollar you earn or are given is a gift and its source is none other than God. Take an inventory of all you have. Give thanks for the abundance in your life, instead of cataloguing your material desires. Embrace abundance, reject scarcity. Give generously and often. I am positive some will disregard this blog, or even suggest I have no right to talk about money. To this I would say two things. First, I do have a right to talk about money. I am a christian pastor and the number one thing Jesus talks about is money. Second, I am a mother of three, living in one of the most expensive places in the U.S. with a mortgage, car payments, orthodontist bills, and more. I know the pressures of balancing a checkbook and scrounging for money at the end of the month. I also know the deep joy of giving. I have discovered that financial generosity is always met with unexpected blessings. What does that mean? An example: my husband and I were barely making our mortgage, but I was determined we would not stop giving to the charities we supported and our church. I doggedly wrote checks to our favorite organizations. Then our lawn mower broke. There was no money. The next day, a friend showed up with an old lawn mower, not knowing we needed one. You can dismiss this story. You can wonder if I’m sounding more like an evangelical christian than a progressive one. But it happened and I’m grateful. Every faithful Christian I know, who has a deep and mature spiritual life, is financially generous and can tell similar stories to the one I wrote of above. When our relationship with money shifts from scarcity to abundance, from hoarding to generosity, everything financial in our life shifts in unexpected life-giving ways. Give. Really, it’s that simple. Bloggers Note:
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I struggle not for an immediate result, but because Jesus called me to struggle. Because we come face to face with Jesus and his beloved people the moment we enter the struggle.  Let’s be clear about Jesus: his #1 topic of conversation was money. His 1st choice for company were the poor and social outcasts. And his #1 sermon topic was the Kingdom of God. Don’t believe me? Read the New Testament and see what you find. Believe me? Read on.
There is a common thread that weaves these three things together: Jesus’ unshakable quest for justice. Defined by Webster, justice is fairness, equal treatment, and impartiality. Defined biblically, justice is love made public. It is the underpinning of Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of God, a place where everyone has a seat at God’s table. To achieve this just kingdom, Jesus knew the outcast must be welcomed into the very center of God’s beloved community and that a new economic order must be created. To achieve this, Jesus preached a new relationship with money. This new relationship was based on equity and generosity. As a broken, imperfect christian, I have tried my best to live into a new relationship with money, but I cannot lie. I am part of a massive economic industrial complex in which I drive a minivan and buy my children cleats. Perhaps you might applaud my husband and my effort to be financially generous, to purchase less, to say no—at least occasionally—to our children’s and our own material desires. But let’s not sugarcoat things—I am nowhere near to living out Jesus’ vision for the kingdom of God. There are some radical christians out there doing it and I highly encourage you to check out their blogs, not mine. (Contact me and I’ll send you in the right direction). How can I write about justice if I still participate in a system that leaves some hungry and others with too much? Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of God was something both earthly and heavenly. It was something present and available, but also beyond this broken world’s ability to create. That is why as christians we are called to struggle, if not achieve, the kingdom of God here on earth. Progressive christians engage in the struggle for justice each and every day. I am proud that my religious heritage links me to the leaders of the anti-slavery, women’s suffrage, labor, civil rights, and anti-war movements. I am proud that today progressive christians struggle toward the kingdom of God by protecting the environment, promoting fair trade, helping immigrants, fighting sex trafficking, and providing clean water. Politically, progressive christians have supported reproductive rights, marriage equality, and nuclear disarmament, to name only a few of the crucial issues we engage in. Just an awareness of these issues is exhausting. There is so much in this world that is broken, so much we must struggle against, so many systems that must be turned upside down if the kingdom of God is ever to be achieved. Is there any end to this struggle, any hope the kingdom will ever be achieved? There is always hope. I know this from participating in the struggle. I know this from watching crowds gather to protest, witnessing christians spend their life committed to justice and who ultimately, through their life work, bring us closer to the kingdom. Look through history and you will see hope woven into the very fabric of time. But when O God, when, will the kingdom be achieved? We ask. We lament. I have no answer, but I am invested in the struggle. And I struggle not for an immediate result, but because Jesus called me to struggle. Because we come face to face with Jesus and his beloved people the moment we enter the struggle. PS My blog has made no mention of the specific work that God’s faithful people are doing day in and day out. Want to be inspired by some people engaged in the struggle? Want to learn more about a particular topic? Email me: abbyhenrich@gmail.com. I’ll connect you. Holding on to your anger hurts you, not the person you’re angry at. Anger destroys community. It hurts the people around you, including those you love.  As a child (okay, as an adult too in my worst moments) I relished my anger. I would nurture it in secret, fueling my rage with false indictments. If someone crossed me at school I would look for evidence through the coming weeks that the wrongdoer’s very nature was evil. Everyone was on trial and no one received mercy from me.
It was exhausting. Also problematic: I loved people. I have always reveled in others’ company, laughter, and stories. My anger was a barrier. Soon, I came to the conclusion that dividing the world between the unforgiveable and those who had not yet made me angry wasn’t worth the energy. As my faith grew, I started letting go of my anger and more readily accepting people’s faults and mistakes. I became more aware of the hurt I caused. With time, the words “sorry” and “I forgive you” came to me. Anger was less a part of my daily life. Yet this was not the end of my struggle with forgiveness. Although I was more willing to forgive and let go of my anger, I still found a few people’s actions unforgiveable. My list of unforgiveable people and things seemed fairly rational:
Here’s the rub: Jesus told his disciples to forgive. When pressed how many times they should forgive he was clear: 7x70 (Matthew 18:22). I don’t think Jesus was really saying that if you forgave 490 times you could quit. Rather he was suggesting two things 1) forgiveness is a process that sometimes takes many attempts 2) forgiveness has no limit. Later in Matthew 18, through parable, Jesus speaks of unconditional forgiveness to anyone who seeks such mercy. Unconditional forgiveness. A process of reconciliation that can take multiple attempts and sometimes a lifetime. I’m exhausted just writing these words. I can’t get on any soapbox in this blog. I’m still working hard on the forgiveness that must take place to heal my old wounds. I still think my freshman English teacher was a jerk and I secretly hope in his next life he’s dyslexic! I’m still having a hard time with that one. What is I were a war refugee?! Or a survivors of abuse?! Forgiveness for the big stuff is hard, hard work. At the end of the day, it comes down to this for me: Jesus was right. Holding on to your anger hurts you, not the person you’re angry at. Anger destroys community. It hurts the people around you, including those you love. Relishing anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die (I’ve heard this saying many times, but have no idea it’s origin). It’s unhealthy. It’s bad. It doesn’t work. So, forgive. But know that forgiveness is a process. It should be unconditional, as impossible as that sounds. But then, holding on to anger is more exhausting that forgiveness. I would rather be foolish and forgive than angry and righteous. Sometimes forgiveness is easy, other times it’s next to impossible. When my imperfect soul can’t seem to forgive, I still want to stand on the side of forgiveness. I want to tell my soul, long before my soul can do it, that I should forgive. And sometimes, that is all my soul needs to hear; forgiveness sprouts like a young sapling and eventually takes deep root. Other times, I have to tell my soul again and again and plant many seeds. Yet as I wait for the tree of life to grow, I pray that even as I struggle to forgive, I am myself forgiven. It’s that simple and that radical. Community begins and ends with us, and with us knowing each other. Meet you neighbor, your co-worker, and everyone else who crosses your path day in and day out. Then you can build community right where you are.  Ten Things Progressive Christian Do:#3 Meet Their Neighbors
Okay, okay. I hear you! #3 seems progressive christian “light” compared to #1 Pray & #2 Enjoy Sex. #1 points to serious religious commitment and #2, well, it’s in your face contrary to religious culture. But #3? What’s the big deal about meeting your neighbor? That doesn’t seem so radical, right? Wrong. Jesus commanded his followers to love their neighbors. It is the central building block of christian belief. This frank command to love neighbor has shaped social, legal, economic, and cultural thought. Yet in our modern day culture, sadly, many of us (especially those of us living in the northeast) do not even know the person or family living right next door. Don’t lie: Do you know your neighbor? And if you are confident enough to answer yes, do you know who lives two houses down, or the name of the person you see almost every day leaving your building to catch the same train? If you can answer yes to these questions, answer this: do you truly know any part of your neighbor’s story? We live in a culture that increasingly values social isolation. We have moved from the front porch of our homes to the private back deck. We have replaced face to face communication with posts on facebook. We text instead of acknowledge the person sitting right next to us in the doctor’s office. *** I’m a bit odd. I feel utterly uncomfortable being in close proximity with someone and not striking up some small conversation. I have a deep desire to be connected with other people. Perhaps you could call this pathological extrovertism, but truth is, I am not as extroverted as many people think. On the Myers-Briggs test I come out as an “I”—an introvert. So why do I need to communicate with everyone from the store clerk to the person riding the elevator in the hospital, from the college student beside me on the train to the shy mother who walks her son to school every day in front of my house? The answer is twofold. First I am a lover of stories. To me, the world is a giant book store filled with great novels. I want to read them all. The novels just happen to be people. Human stories are like push pins dotting a map, revealing God’s presence interlacing this vast world. Second, I desperately want to live in the heart of community. I want to support others and be supported by them, I want to celebrate with others, lament with others, I want to move through all the depths of life within community. Perhaps for this reason I volunteer for my kids’ schools and extracurricular activities—not because I have time—but because I want my communities to flourish. The only way a community can flourish is if we know each other. For this reason, I can’t keep my mouth shut when a mom shows up bald dropping her kids off to school or when I notice that the grocery bagger’s face is streaked with tears. I can’t keep my mouth shut when a child joyfully dances from school or the solar panel company pulls in down the street. I also can’t keep my mouth shut when a teenager drives too fast in a parking lot filled with children. Community takes engagement, and community engagement begins with knowing just who your neighbor is. We begin with “Hello,” and move on from there. It’s that simple and that radical. Community begins and ends with us, and with us knowing each other. Meet you neighbor, your co-worker, and everyone else who crosses your path day in and day out. Then you can build community right where you are. Sex isn’t bad. Sex is great! It is to be enjoyed, and can be enjoyed most fully, most deeply in the context of love. Christians (and non Christians) skip the guilt, discover love, and have some sex… well, have a lot of sex with one person.  What’s so terrible about sex?
Maybe people are participating in a different physical coupling event than I am, but I happen to quite enjoy sex. Call me crazy! From the amount of negative press sex receives from the Christian church you would think that sex is 1) Disgusting 2) Generally unenjoyable 3) Must always lead to pregnancy. If you think sex is disgusting, I suggest therapy or a partner with better hygiene. If you find sex generally unenjoyable, perhaps there is something amiss in your relationship with your lover or there is a physical problem that needs medical attention. If you think sex always ends in pregnancy, please go see your doctor. Birth control is plentiful in 2014. Sex receives other negative press for good reason. Historically, sex has been used to control, coerce, and degrade people. Sex can be distorted into a violent act that wreaks havoc on individuals and communities, sometimes for generations. Sex, intended as a blessing, can become a curse through rape or incest. Sex has often been used as a tool to subjugate and enslave women, the non-heterosexual population, and powerless men. I cannot even begin to touch upon the many ways sex has been distorted and turned into something totally other than the simple physical act between two people utterly attracted to one another. Sex has been distorted, all too often, into an act of selfishness, violence, and power. How could we turn something so good into something so bad? While much attention (for which I am deeply grateful as a woman and mother) has been given recently to the horrors of rape, incest, sexually transmitted disease, heterosexism, and the sexual subjugation of women, there has been little positive attention given to sex, especially from the Christian church. The opposing conversations seem black and white: Conversation #1 Main Stream Media’s over sexualized point of view: Have sex whenever and with whomever! versus The Christian Right’s abstinence rhetoric (especially for women: You’d better wear a promise ring!). If you have any sexual urges before marriage you are sinful! Conversation #2 Main Stream Media’s disdain for sexual violence: Why are there so many the victims of sexual violence? (We have nothing to do with that, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. The way we objectify, modify, debase, and degrade women in TV and film and advertising isn’t causing all this violence!) versus The Christian Right’s blame-the-victim approach: Sweep it under the carpet! Deny, deny, deny! (P.S. None of this would happen if women would just dress modestly and not walk alone at night and stop having sex out of wedlock!) I would like to begin a totally new conversation about sex. We can call it conversation #3, but we can skip the “versus” clause. Instead just add your point of view to this blog. But before I begin conversation #3, I would like to thank the many scholars, activists, health care workers, and educators who haven’t participated in conversations #1 & #2, but have begun totally new and more productive conversations. I would like to thank them for distributing condoms, making sex-ed a priority in schools, enacting yes means yes sexual assault laws (Go California!), and writing scholarly works that shape the larger cultural conversation around sex. Conversation #3: Don’t enjoy sex despite your Christianity! Enjoy sex because of your Christianity! From the perspective of an ordained minister, progressive Christian, enjoyer of sex, and heterosexual feminist who loves to bake: Sex is great. Sex gets better the older you get and the better you know your partner. Sex is best and most life-giving-enjoyable when you are deeply in love. Something that good has to be created by God and couldn’t possibly be sinful. And if it really was only for making babies, I am positive there would be no such thing as an orgasm for women (really, think about it). I am praying my one day fifteen year old daughter or sons don’t ask me to take them to CVS so they can buy condoms. If they do, I’ll have to breathe deeply and make sure they have proper protection against STDs and unwanted pregnancies. The truth is, I want my children to wait until they are older (how about at least 18 please), more mature, more emotionally resilient, to sort through attraction, affection, lasting love, and plain old physical enjoyment. I want my children to have a smooth entrance into their first sexual encounter without pressure, without violence, and without just empty lust. But I cannot control my children’s futures, let alone their sexual urges. The only thing I can do is talk to them openly and honestly about the wonders of sex within committed, loving, and lasting relationships. I hope they will wait (how long, oh Lord? how long?) because I truly believe sex is best when it is shared in the context of love. I am certain that whatever their first sexual encounter is like, God will be present, in whatever way they need God’s presence most. God will not be shaking a finger, not screaming judgment, not handing out guilt like an angry business card. Instead, God could be celebrating with them or calling them to ask the deeper questions about attraction and love or, in a worst-case scenario, lamenting with them. What I will not hand down to my children, for I am certain it has nothing to do with God, is any notion that sex is inherently sinful. I hope not one ounce of their sexual encounters are mixed with guilt as they enjoy the bodies (their own and their partners) that God created! Sex isn’t bad. Sex is great! It is to be enjoyed, and can be enjoyed most fully, most deeply in the context of love. Christians (and non Christians) skip the guilt, discover love, and have some sex… well, have a lot of sex with one person. |
Abby HenrichRev. Abigail A Henrich (ehm!) is an ordained minister who earned her stripes at Princeton Theological Seminary and Colgate University. That said, Abby is really a mother-pastor-spouse who lives in a kinetic state of chaos as she moves from her many vocations: folding laundry, preaching, returning phone calls, sorting lunch boxes, answering e-mails, and occasionally thinking deep thoughts in the shower. Unabashedly she is a progressive Christian who believes some shaking up has got to happen in the church. Categories
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